NCCU Sends Five Eagles to NCAA Track & Field Nationals

DURHAM, NC – Five North Carolina Central University student-athletes will be competing at the 2004 NCAA Division II Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships from May 27-29 at Hilmer Lodge Stadium on the campus of Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, California.

Junior Steve Enoch will attempt to earn his fifth All-America honor when he competes in the long jump. The Burlington, NC, native heads into the national championship event ranked second in Division II with a mark of 25 feet, 5.5 inches. Enoch is a two-time All-American in the outdoor long jump with a second-place leap of 25'-8.25" as a freshman in 2002, and an eighth-place effort of 23'-8" last year. The men's long jump finals will be held Friday (May 28) at 2:30 p.m. (PDT).

NCCU's multiple-threat is freshman Hakeem Mohammed, a Winston-Salem, NC, native who qualified for the national championships in four events - the 100-meter dash, 200m dash, 400m dash and 4x400m relay. Mohammed heads into the meet ranked seventh in the 200m dash (20.95), eighth in the 100m dash (10.42), and 14th in the 400m dash (47.10). The rookie sprinter will only compete in three of the four events, however, because Eagle head coach Michael Lawson decided not to declare Mohammed in the 400m dash. "I do not want to wear him out," Lawson said. "This will give him the opportunity to conserve his energy and concentrate on the other three events."

Mohammed is slated to run the 100m dash preliminaries on Thursday (May 27) at 4:35 p.m., and the 200m dash preliminaries on Friday at 4:40 p.m.

The NCCU 4x400m relay team, consisting on Mohammed, sophomore Austin Hogan, freshman Dorian Turner and freshman Shareef Muhammad, is currently 11th in the NCAA Division II with a time of 3:10.85. The foursome will run in the preliminaries on Friday at 7:15 p.m. (PDT).

For more information regarding the 2004 NCAA Division II Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships, log on to www.ncaasports.com and www.csupomona.edu/~athletic/championship/index.html.